1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrically and or manually operable door lock.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a rim lock of the type used on the inside surface of a door or the like where individuals can be buzzed in and/or out by a shopkeeper or receptionist; and where mechanical actuation of the lock is also possible from inside the door or from where it may be desired.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A remotely actuated door lock can be strike-centered, that is, have its actuating mechanism in the strike on the doorjamb or in the lock on the door.
Such a strike-centered lock has the disadvantage of being fairly difficult to retrofit on the door with the bulky strike mechanism, and also such systems are normally easy to jimmy and otherwise circumvent.
There are many types of door-mounted locks. They may be incorporated in the doorknob assembly, as in U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,527 to Schlage.
In another such arrangement as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,763,888 to Billeter, a pneumatic door-mounted door closer is connected to a pneumatic actuator in a lock mechanism to withdraw the bolt momentarily as the door is just about closed, so that the door bolt does not noisily engage the strike.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,234,766 to O'Brian a small rotary output motor carries a worm on its output shaft that meshes with a gear-sector paul that operates the latch bolt. It is not structured to include backset choices, a crosspiece fin, a plunger which is practically a one piece assembly and is held rigidly together directly in one axis line for greater efficiency and durability.
Similarly U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,576,119 and 3,751,086 to Harris and Geringer, respectively, have a solenoid mounted directly on the door.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,890,608 to Peterson the solenoid is linked to the bolt.
A system kinematically identical to that of Peterson is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,169,616 also to Peterson which uses a pneumatic actuator.
All such arrangements are fairly bulky, making it impossible to mount them on the inside surface of the thin (narrow) stile of a standard metal-and-glass entrance door of the type used in shops and offices, etc., in such a manner that it can be actuated from outside the door by a standard rim key cylinder.
A partial solution to this problem of retrofitting an existing (narrow) thin-stile door is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,752 to Geringer. However, the mechanism of this patent is extremely complex.
With all these arrangements manual actuation of the lock is frequently impossible, and it is often also impossible to cut out the lock by holding it in a position with its bolt fully retracted. What is more, such locks are normally only set up for one particular type of installation, for instance, an in-swinging door; that cannot be adapted at the site to different setups.
The Savarieau et al. and Bright references basically are to latch or fasten the door in a locked position rather than as an alternate to keep a door unlocked, without the use of the bolt, crosspiece fin, and plunger assembly structure.
Curtiss et al. and Flodell's strikes do not use one part of the assembly for outswing doors and another part of the assembly for inswing doors, etc.
Rifkin, Hamilton, Cleff, Rau, Spinello, Ewing, Pond, and Nikolaus have their relative differences too.
O'Brien's 82 is a threaded member which engages mounting plate 28 and rear housing plate 16, the latter being locked in place by a key 84. It appears that 86 is a shaft on the other side connected to handle 90 and cam 88.
O'Brien's invention is mainly a motor driven unit with an added solenoid and with mechanical apparatus of a different character and different objectives than that of the present invention including backset choices, bolt, crosspiece fin, and plunger assembly structure, etc.
3. Description of the Prior Art: (Continued)
Povlich U.S. Pat. No. 2,786,701 shows a lock for an automobile door. Its bolt shaft does not movably extend through both the throughbores of an anvil and a plunger, nor is it so movably mounted. It needs a second solenoid to keep it in locked position. Its switch is to control a light. It and its housing do not accommodate interchangeable and reversible parts, and reversible parts and it do not mount on from narrow to large stile doors, or slam lock on inswinging and or outswinging doors, with solenoid power on.
In the French reference 559,461, the bolt head or bolt 18 here, which is actually diametrically tapered, enters and lies within the core member 4, and within its solenoid 5. It does not have a bolt shaft running through both of its core members 6 and 4 and one of them is solid. The removable means 8 here is with a thread in a deeply enclosed area of its mechanism requiring a lenthly operation to accomplish its means, not a quick and simple means of just removing a clip at the end of a shaft easily accessible. It is not mountable on narrow to large stile doors, and the strike 28 has multiple moving parts and does have an independent single function.
The four sided box of the Austrian reference 103,785 has no facilities for interchangeable parts or for reversing parts and is not facilitated to be mounted on narrow to large stile doors.
The Heyer U.S. Pat. No. 2,516,991 teaching shows a means, where its bolt head 32 is retracted to line-up with its screw 31, and with its hole 35, so that the screw 31 can be reached there, and so loosened and then the bolt head 32 can then be turned 180.degree.. And so by doing this, the lock here would not have to be taken apart, to accomplish its means. The bolt here does not have a shaft running through both an anvil and a plunger for a compact electronic service, with a clip at the end of said shaft being a means for receiving a bolt assembly.
Another principal disadvantage of such locks is that they must be made in many totally different models to accommodate different features, depending on security requirements.